by Jon Jacks
Without need of any words of command, the men leapt up into their saddles, sharply spinning their mounts around.
No longer quite sure of the general direction they had originally been travelling in, the riders spurred their horses on to follow after Helen and Gremir, both of whom were heading for one of the larger gaps that had been formed between the encircling trees.
Gremir himself had headed this way because it was the route lying directly opposite to the main bulk of the swiftly approaching wolves. Helen had chosen it, however, because she had seen the white hind head that way.
Despite the well-practised dexterity and speed of the men’s mounting up and retreat, the wolves towards the front of the hurriedly encroaching pack managed to draw upon and leap up at the very last riders to leave the clearing.
The wolves snapped, snarled threateningly: but fortunately that was all they managed. The path chosen by the galloping hind was the clearest of all through the still thrashing maze of branches, the wolves unexpectedly finding their most immediate routes abruptly blocked by a curving stem, or a rising root.
For of course, the trees were still fighting amongst themselves: still lashing out with the multiple strikes of a great many branches, still grappling at the stems of other trees, wrenching at them violently. And so, too, the riders had to utilise their skills to the utmost as they weaved through gaps that opened up as instantly as they closed.
They had to suddenly leap over roots that rose up like rolling, serpentine beasts. They had to duck as the higher branches abruptly swooped low, as if caught in the fierce, unpredictable gusts of a storm.
For the wolves, it was even worse.
Yes, they required smaller gaps to worm their way through; and yet it was as if the trees were being more particularly unforgiving of their presence in the woods, the stems thicker and more urgent in the more unexpected moves wherever the pursuing wolves wished to progress.
The wolves had to swerve violently time and time again as they tried to keep up with the fleeing riders, their course sometimes so immediately blocked they crashed into the suddenly appearing obstacle, while many were whipped up into the air by a ferociously curling branch.
Naturally, most of the men put all this ‘good fortune’ down to Helen’s skills with magic. She also detected the effects of magic, yet didn’t flatter herself that she was responsible.
It must be the hind, she thought.
She’s the one leading us safely through all this chaotic warring of branches and trees.
And although it seems I’m in some way connected with her, I’m not the one conscious of how any magic is being used here.
Indeed, Helen was still quite sure that there was a great deal she still had to learn.
There were still some important facts eluding her.
The hind rushing before her glowed more brightly than ever, having sprouted the horned branches of golden antlers.
And within the embrace of those antlers, the hind had taken and carried with it the glistening sphere of the Gordian Knot.
*
Why couldn’t she control the wolves?
If everything was her, then the wolves, too, were her.
But of course: like some of the trees, they didn’t come under her control.
Everything is me, she thought: but there are other ‘mes’, other levels of consciousness wresting their own control.
And wolves are creatures of the full moon.
Just as crows and serpents come under the waning moon of death.
And her creatures?
She looked towards the white hind once more.
She recalled the deer, breaking free of the tower.
And the centaur?
How was the deer linked to the centaur?
Or to the lions?
‘We’re nearly clear!’
The goblin screamed in her ear as, anxiously peering over her shoulder, he noticed that they were at last reaching the very edges of the forest.
He had leapt up behind Helen on her horse as soon as she had mounted it, clinging fearfully to her waist as they ducked and weaved through the stormy sea of writhing branches and lumbering trees.
The branches, like the trees, were no longer as closely packed, so apparently inextricably entwined. As they lashed out at each other, clung at each other, they threw up clouds of snow that, in this more sparsely covered area, had managed to tumble down from the higher levels of the trees.
Through increasingly larger gaps between the dark, innumerable stems of the trees, Helen saw the white blanket of snow-covered hills and the hurried squalls. Although blindingly white itself, the hind briefly appeared to vanish as it swept out into the swiftly scurrying snowflakes, the golden glow of its horns left behind like a small, hovering sun.
Despite it being night-time, the brightness of the snow, together with the abrupt cold of a suddenly unhindered wind, took Helen’s breath away as she and her horse charged through the last of the trees out into the open.
As her eyes slowly adjusted to the glare, Helen followed the shimmering progress of the glittering, golden ball, recognising that to slew to a halt would only allow the pursing wolves to catch up with them.
The pounding hooves of the horses threw up the previously undisturbed snow, adding to the chaos of the flakes swirling about them, as if they had simply escaped one dark maze to emerge into another one of glittering light.
Even so, Helen began to bring the many, varied and rough shapes lying before her eyes into focus and detail. They were high enough up a rising hill for her to see a great deal of the landscape stretching out before them.
A higher, steeper mound lay almost directly in front of her and her still fiercely galloping men. It rose up from the snowy fields like a soaring white pyramid, a hill that Helen would normally have instantly recognised as the one bearing the earthworks formed into the shape of a proud, club-bearing giant.
Today, however, that giant wasn’t just covered by the blinding sheet of snow, but also by the darker forms of many men struggling to hurriedly climb it. Their task was made all the harder by the long, horse-drawn carriage they were dragging up the mount’s side with them. Its great and cumbersome weight, along with the slippery snow and mud, caused them to precariously slide back every now and again.
Around them all there still hung the dark, shadowy forms of the wolves, keeping their distance, yet apparently ready and eager to strike at any moment.
Why weren’t they attacking? Helen wondered. After all, Fausta had set her wolves onto Helen and her men.
She looked now over towards the west of the mount and its covering of desperately struggling men.
And she had her answer.
Fausta and her legions were rapidly drawing closer across the rolling, snow-draped hills. These men were similarly surrounded by massing wolves, but here the wolves were fanning out on either side of the oncoming formations, there as support rather than as disturbing shadows.
They were close to crashing headlong into the old empress and her own limited forces. Even if Helen and her men reached the mount before Fausta did, their combined numbers would still be effortlessly overwhelmed by such a huge force of Romans.
Fausta, of course, wasn’t even going to give Helen the chance of linking up with the old empress.
The wolves harassing the men struggling to drag the carriage up the mount’s steep incline suddenly halted their own steady progress up the hill’s sides.
They raised their heads as if hearing a cry somewhere far off: as if sensing the presence of the full moon.
They howled as one.
They turned in the snow.
They looked up towards Helen and her men galloping down the hill towards them.
Leaping up, they streamed across the snow, swarming up the rise towards the oncoming men, rapidly darkening the previously pure white sheet.
They came on at remarkable speed – and ravenously launched themselves upon Helen and her men.
*
Chapter 49
Helen could control her sword far better than she could before: naturally, it now seemed merely to be an extension of her arm. Weightless, easily manoeuvrable.
Deadly.
It curved and carved through the flesh of the wolves even as they leapt towards her.
Legs dropped to the floor. Heads fell to one side. Bellies were split, the insides spilling out.
Her men were similarly wreaking havoc on the attacking wolves. They were brave men, not one for running away. They held their ground, their swords flashing almost as expertly as Helen’s.
Still, the wolves were drawing their own share of flesh and blood. As soon as one died, another rushed out from the swirling snow as if it had been simply conjured into life there.
The men about her were lurching forward and down from their mounts, thrusting out to split open the stomach of a leaping wolf, or bringing a blade down hard on the back of one loping past.
And every cut they made was causing fresh wounds upon their own flesh.
She had never seen anything like this before, this inextricable connection between man and wolf.
Why was all this happening now?
The presence of the queens, the three queens manipulating the sea of consciousness.
It had awakened it all.
Made it all so much more fluid: so open once more to change, to manipulation.
Eradicating its stability: its solidification.
They had stirred it all up into its originally chaotic beginnings.
Rekindled connections long forgotten, long ignored.
It was the men’s own fears that were ravaging them.
*
The Gordian Knot.
The hind was clearly visible again: it waited patiently nearby once more, the knot revolving slowly amidst its clutching antlers.
The knot shredded, them came together.
Shredded, then came together.
What was it trying to say to her?
That brutality isn’t the answer?
That’s how the false Mary had interpreted it.
And the real Mary? Mary Magdalene, wisdom herself?
‘You wanted to kill him, didn’t you? And yet, recognising that, being horrified by it, you stayed your own hand.’
Yes, she too had warned against resorting to brutality.
And yet…
There was still something else she hadn’t quite grasped yet, she recognised.
Even so, it seemed to her to be good advice at this particular moment.
‘Gremir, stop killing the wolves,’ she yelled out, all the motions of the ferocious battle taking place about her all suddenly rushing back into life once more, ‘we have to stop fighting the wolves!’
*
‘Are you crazy?’ Gremir snarled back at Helen. ‘They’ll kill us!’
‘No, they won’t! Trust me!’
She urged her horse towards him, grabbing his sword arm and forcing him to hold back from striking down hard on a leaping wolf.
The wolf took advantage of this, snapping hard at the arm of Gremir’s jerkin. Pulling off huge portions of padding in its snarling maw, it left an iron plate dangling by its loosened threads.
Other wolves similarly leapt up at them, causing Helen to briefly fear she must have worked all this out wrong, that the wolves would continue attacking them even if her men made no effort to fight back.
Strangely, however, Gremir wasn’t nervously struggling to wrest back control of his sword arm.
‘You’re right,’ he said, amazed. ‘Something odd’s happening!’
He’d noticed what Helen hadn’t: that the leaping, snarling wolves weren’t causing them any serious damage, the snapping teeth always falling just short of making any contact that would result in severed flesh.
One of the wolves had even stayed off from his leaping, his demeanour now one of an exhausted, perhaps even ashamed dog.
Helen stared gratefully if a little perplexedly at this wolf, recognising that this was something more akin to what she had hoped for.
So why where the other wolves continuing to attack Gremir?
Of course!
Not every wolf here was solely linked in some way to her men: many had just arrived after pursuing the old empress’s column.
‘Stay your swords!’ Gremir hollered out at the men as Helen at last let him free his arm from her grip. ‘Do as your lady says!’
Of course, the rest of the men were still ferociously hacking at the frenziedly leaping wolves. Their mounts were rearing in terror, the horse’s snouts flaring wildly in fear.
They weren’t ready to simply lay down their arms in such a situation, even on the direct command of their superiors. When they curiously glanced Gremir’s way, however, they were startled to see that neither he nor Helen were slashing away at the surrounding wolves anymore: and yet the wolves, far from making any headway against the defenceless couple, appeared to be simply going through the motions of a sham attack, rather than undertaking a truly merciless onslaught.
The snapping jaws never stuck home. The fangs never drew blood.
Even the horses seemed to have realised this and had calmed down to a point where they were merely allowing the wolves to jump harmlessly around them.
Indeed, one of the wolves was now lazily lying down upon the ground, as if preparing for sleep.
‘Don’t be nervous,’ Helen explained helpfully. ‘The wolves are just your own fears!’
One of the men uneasily raised his sword above the chaotic fray, his expression one of someone ready at any moment to start using his blade again if needs be.
Yet as with Gremir, the wolves failed to take advantage of the withdrawal of his defence. Their leaping was aimless, more for show than for any real purpose.
One of the wolves, again as with Gremir, also stepped back a little, hanging his head ashamedly.
Seeing this, other men pulled back from striking down at the baying wolves. The effect was the same: everything about them, including the nature of their own mounts, almost instantly calmed.
The more the men steadied their attacks, the more the wolves cooled in their own assault. The horses were soon the calmest of all, their attitude curiously one of complete ease even as the wolves continued to leap so threateningly if so uselessly around them.
Then, suddenly, Gremir’s mount both shivered and whinnied with wide-eyed fear.
The wolf that had lain down to go to sleep upon the ground had not only woken up but had now also risen back to its feet once more
And it was no longer a sleek, snide wolf.
It was a towering, growling lion.
*
Chapter 50
A hesitant quiver ran through Gremir’s sword arm.
He had lowered his sword yet, obviously, he was wondering if it were time to raise it again.
Helen apprehensively watched his growing unease, unsure herself what to do or to advise.
She glanced towards the hind, hoping for at least some element of guidance.
The deer was still there, still nonchalantly standing by as if nothing were capable of disturbing its calmness and certainty. Between its glittering antlers, the knot continued to unravel and reform, almost as if mocking her lack of understanding.
Looking farther around, Helen saw that Fausta and her massed legions were rapidly approaching the mount. Far behind them, there was a disturbance in the snowclad fields, the snow being thrown up into the air, the effect you’d expect from a flurry of strong winds.
Helen had seen that effect before, however. It signalled the hurried approach of hundreds of mounted men: her father’s men.
It should have been a reason to rejoice. Yet Helen also saw that Fausta wasn’t in anyway unnerved by the swiftly approaching riders, for her own troops – the majority of whom were well-trained, superbly organised foot soldiers – continued on their inexorable march towards the mount.
The flanking wolves had already turn
ed to face the oncoming riders. They were dark shapes slinking through the snow, their numbers so great that they were like the darkest oil rapidly spreading across and staining a bedsheet.
Worse still, her father and his men had also unwittingly brought hundreds of reinforcements for the young empress.
For along their own flanks, there were other dark stains of yet more wolves
And these were already turning inwards, preparing to join in with the massed attack on Helen’s father and his men.
*
Helen’s heart sank further.
Fausta was so confident that her wolves would easily take care of the king’s relatively small force that she had sent her own mounted troops racing ahead towards the mount. This force alone could be numbered in the hundreds, a force far greater than her father’s.
The Roman cavalry would soon reach the mount too, probably not long after the old empress and her men had at last managed to surmount the hill. The long, slim carriage containing the cross was on the very edge of the final rise, the white gleam of angels surrounding it now perfectly clear to Helen through an unexpected break in the ferociously swirling snow.
The angels would undoubtedly perform their best to save the carriage and its precious contents from damage: but that would be their prime and perhaps only concern. Helen couldn’t envisage them making any efforts to save the empress or her men.
The odd break in the snow squalls also gave Helen glimpses of the dark night sky lying beyond the mound, the glittering stars rising, the most prominent figure being the Hunter regaining his feet. He dominated the sections of the sky Helen could see directly above the mount’s summit, as if he were rising up from out of its own pyramidic depths.
The growling of the nearby lion made Helen whirl around.
But now there wasn’t just the one lion: by each man, there was either a lion rising to its feet, or a wolf undergoing a transformation.
She could sense the nervousness of the men, yet they still restrained from striking out at either the wolves or the lions. Even so, they were exchanging edgy glances, each one drawing closer with every passing second to striking out once more at the surrounding creatures.